Wednesday, 2 December 2015

this review is for the Remington 870/ 870 express, from out of the box to the range and most important in the field. the 870 has been reviewed to death, but there are still many unanswered questions.

the kit that we purchased to test was the express kit from BassPro shop U.S.A. In total taxes in we were quite happy with the price, coming in just under 600$ (580 to be exact). this included the standard 28" vented rib barrel, turkey barrel with true glow sights with a full choke and a rifled slug barrel .

on first sight out of the box it is quite apparent that Remington skimped on the finish with a mat
black synthetic stock and no recoil pad!(this is important later in the review). the action of the 12 gauge is very smooth, comparable to the browning BPS or the beneli super nova. the action release was the thing that stood out to us the most, Remington put it in the perfect spot for easy access sitting right in front of the trigger guard. the weight also stood out it is a fairly light 12 gauge shotgun for the price, with 6 rounds in total of the gun the scale weight is only 7.2 pounds. this is almost a full pound lighter that most 12 gauge shotguns of the same class. on the safety aspect of things the trigger lock
was also a nice addition, it is fitted around the trigger guard and comes with a double sided key(no more guessing what way it goes in).

at the range the first thing we noted is the gun kicks like a horse compared to other synthetic stock guns. the end of the stock has about 1" of very hard rubber but with the addition of a universal
recoil pad the recoil was cut in half!. the rifled slug barrel has no factory sights so you better
be ready to spend 200$ on a decent shotgun scope. we were quite impressed with how tight
the groups were when shooting 3" hollow point slugs. at 50YDS the grouping was 5" with 10 shots
and at 75YDS the grouping was 8" with 10 shots.

the first day of the hunt we were in Manitoba, Canada goose hunting and i was very excited to see this gun really fluff some feathers. the bag limit was hit in the first hour and i was quite impressed with how smooth the shells could be pumped as i have always hunted with a semi-automatic 12 gauge.

after 1 year owning this gun i am very happy with it and will recommend it to anybody looking for a decently priced 12 gauge. overall i give the 870 a 4/5 star rating the only thing that could be done to better this gun is a better finish as it looks allot cheaper than it is!